


Last Hope

by GypsySisters



Category: The OA (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Timelines, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Character Death, Death, F/M, HOAp, Heavy Angst, Hospitals, Redemption, So much angst, Trauma, Villains, car crash, hap loves prairie
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2017-05-17
Packaged: 2018-11-01 19:10:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10928187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GypsySisters/pseuds/GypsySisters
Summary: OA is stranded, hurt and desperate, and the only person she can ask for help is the one person she hates the most.





	Last Hope

The car came out of nowhere, collided into the driver side, crushing Homer against the splintering metal door. Airbags in their faces, OA reeled against the impact, the force of the crash knocking her out.

She was slipping in and out of consciousness. There was broken glass. Pavement. Rain dripping through the tattered car frame.

Then, in an ambulance, a wiry woman with dark hair and strong hands was putting an IV in her arm, attending to her wounds. OA surfaced briefly, begged, “Where’s Homer?! Where is he!” The rush of adrenaline helped her focus. She had to save him.

“He's in critical condition, ma'am. We're taking you both to St. Joseph's. Please. Lie down…”

“You have to call the numbers! In my wallet! Please!” The list. Her family. They'd know what to do. They'd understand.

“We need you to lie back. Now. You're in critical condition. ”

She grabbed the paramedic’s arm, blood stained fingerprints digging into rough fabric “Promise.”

The woman knew better than to make promises she couldn't keep. She sucked her teeth, administered a sedative, knocking OA out, and busied herself with her wounds.

Homer died before he made it to the hospital floor.

OA’s wallet was lost in the debris.

By the time she came to in a hospital bed, his body was lying in the morgue, cold, alone, a John Doe tag on his toe.

The buzz of the fluorescent lights was she first thing she heard, followed by the squeak of shoes on the linoleum hallway floor. She rubbed the heels of her hands against her closed eyes and sucked in the pain of a migraine shooting up through her neck and into her temple. The light had changed outside; how long had she been out?

She scrambled out of bed only to collapse in agony on the floor. There was a bandage across her abdomen and a brace on her leg.

“Child, you won't be going anywhere in your condition!” A hefty nurse strode into the room with a voice like smooth coffee. Supporting OA, she helped her back into bed, “Your leg is broken, sweet thing. You need to let it lie.”

“Homer?! Where is he?!”

“Is that the boy you came in with?” The nurse sat on the mattress next to her patient, hands patting OA’s nervously. Doctors were supposed to be the ones to give news of death. It would be out of line…

“He's dead.” OA stated cooly, an uncanny understanding of the nurse’s thoughts.

She sighed, “Yes. Yes he is. I'm so sorry.”

Without missing a beat, OA insisted, “I need a phone.”

“A phone? Oh. Of course. Of course.” The bed creaked as the nurse stood up. She picked up a beige landline and placed it in the spot where she'd been sitting. “Dial 9 for an outside line.”

OA began dialing Rachel’s number immediately, but it didn't work. “Something’s wrong.”

The nurse paused in the door. “Oh? Oh! The hospital phones don't do long distance. Here. Use mine.” She walked over and handed OA her cell. “I'll be back in shortly with the doctor. She'll have questions for you about your health before we take you into surgery.”

“Surgery?”

“Yes, sweetheart,” the nurse chuckled. “Your leg will heal itself, but we have to help it on its way.”

OA had time to call every number she remembered. But Rachel’s just rang and rang. Renata was out of the country, back in Cuba, which would be too far away. Scott’s cell went to voicemail for an voicemail box he never set up. BBA’s number was disconnected (was she having trouble paying her bills again?). And the boys? Would their parents even let them come? She hadn't talked to them for months, since she'd found the others. She knew Steve still felt like she abandoned him and often ignored her calls. She tried his number, only to leave a shaky voice message. And she didn't call the other boys enough to know their numbers by heart.

There was one person left who could help.

He had given her his number in case of emergencies, and she'd laughed in his face. But she still remembered what he said: “I knew you would be reluctant to accept it, so I took the liberty of changing my number to something you could never forget. 7-7-2-4-7-4-3. It's your name, Prairie. The letters line up with the digits on the phone. My phone number is your name: 551-772-4743. And the area code is for New York. Or you can remember it as...Five of you. Five in Crestwood. And one?” He had chuckled, “I guess the one alone is me.”

No. She would not ask for his help. She was free from him. They were all free. She would not willingly entangle herself in his life again. He was trouble. He knew no boundaries. He was obsessive and compulsive and once he had his claws in her life, she might never get them out again.

She couldn’t call him. She sat there, phone in hand, with a deadening feeling as dread grew inside of her, because she knew she had to call him. He was the only one left. And she knew he would come.

But what about Nancy and Abel? She could call them instead. They might contact the boys and send help, but she had no way to trust that they’d believe her. In all likelihood, they might just take advantage of her weakened state to try and take her home again. They were no different from Hap in that regard: they just wanted to make her their own. At least, in this instance, Hap knew what had to be done and wouldn’t flinch at the questionable morality involved. If she told him what she wanted, he would do it; and, in this moment, she needed that kind of maniacal loyalty.

She dialed the number, more anxious with each ring, only to get voicemail. With scattered thoughts and desperation, she left a message, “It's me. I need your help. Homer is dead. Please. I need you to help me save him before he crosses over.”

Moments later, the doctor was there, the nurse retrieved her phone, and OA was barraged with questions and whisked away to surgery.

* * *

Hap was not accustomed to answering the phone when an unrecognized number called, so he let it go to voicemail, then opened up the call log to play it while he got back to his work.

As soon as he heard her voice, his heart pounded within him. Prairie. She'd called him. Him. Was asking for his help.

He took the mention of Homer as a blow. He was racked with jealousy that, even in death, Homer was so close to her heart that she would do anything to save him… even reaching out to the person she undoubtedly loathes the most.

“Hold onto that sense of loathing,” he thought to himself. “You'll need that to remind you she'd never choose you.”

He cleaned up his tools, locked the door and left straight away, hopping in his plane to make record time to be at her side.

He knew, of course, what she wanted of him: the first and second movements. She wanted him to revive her lover. The pain of jealousy coursed through him as he took off, speeding into the air. His lip twitched almost imperceptibly. She and Homer had been together for months now, happy, free. Having completed his research only to find that the coma of this dimension simply folds into coma upon coma of endless empty dimensions, like blank canvases waiting for travelers that never arrive, he'd lost faith in the five movements and had set them all free.

What is human consciousness without a body? Nothing, it seemed.

So he would go. He would help. He would revive Homer. And then he would let her leave him again.

**Author's Note:**

> This fanfic is a gift for Christine ( societyneedstocrumble.tumblr.com )!
> 
> I meant to write you a one-off ficlet for your birthday, but this is all I could finish in time, so instead you get the promise of more chapters that may /or/ may not ever be written!
> 
> xoxo  
> GypsySisters  
> 


End file.
